Fuel dial behaviour / fuel usage

[DCA999]

I'm a bit concerned about how much fuel my car is using.
I have a 2010 10reg Ibiza SC Sport 1.6 DSG.
I have the dash read-out set to show how many miles of fuel I have left, and
when I fill up it usually shows around the 300 mark, sometimes 295, sometimes up to 320.
The read-out goes down in 5 mile increments.
I live exactly 3 miles from work, so on my journey if the dial says '195' when I leave, I expect it to maybe click down to '190' when I arrive.
I have noticed lately the number is going down far quicker than that, I left for home the other day and the dial said '225' to go, but when I arrived home
it was all the way down to '190'.
Ok it was a bit of a slow, stop-start trip in rush hour traffic, but no matter how
un-economically I might drive (which I don't) there is no way that I could have used 35 miles worth of fuel on a 3 mile journey.
I have noticed similar at other times too, I'll park up at the shop, with the dial having just clicked down to say '150', then when I get home (only 200 yards away) it will have clicked down to again '145'.
Has anyone else noticed their car behaving in a similar way?
Do DSG’s use more fuel than a manual?
Can the cold weather have an effect on this?
I'm a bit worried I may have a leak or there is something wrong in the engine causing the car to drink more fuel than it should.

Cheers.

 

[Jay1990]

DSG should/will use less fuel than a manual.

the cold dark weather changes the amount of fuel used, it runs a little faster on start up to warm the engine up. You'll probs have the blowers and AC on to clear the windows more, your lights will be running more. many factors change fuel useage. Its not the best fuel guage Ive seen. Its pretty poor really, quiet slow to update according to your driving. But I wouldnt worry too much about it now.

EDIT- And driving to the shop thats only 200yards away is just lazy, even in the rain

Jay

 

[Slimy]

On my Toledo (older car but possibly the same fuel calc) I can drive 50 miles to work at a steady rate and the miles left doesn't change. Or I can do five miles to the supermarket and lose 20 miles off my range. And then on the way back my range will actually go back up!

It's also next to useless when I'm running out of fuel. The red light comes on when I hit 20 miles left, I can then do 10 miles with it saying 20 miles left. It'll then suddenly got 15, 10, 5 then 0, and then it's taken me another five miles to get to the petrol station. I almost expected it to give me a negative range!!

I get the impression it's trying to use a combination of average fuel consumption, instantaneous fuel consumption, and the fuel gauge to work out range. Average fuel consumption is useless when deciding how you're driving at the time, instantaneous changes too quick and the fuel gauge seems to register three quarters of the fuel in the top quarter of the indicator!

 

[DCA999]

So basically it's next to useless then! I usually plan my next fill up for when the guage gets down to 5 or 10 miles left, maybe I should just go by the number of bars displayed, fill up when it gets down to one maybe.

 

[Beazy]

The read-out goes down in 5 mile increments.
I live exactly 3 miles from work, so on my journey if the dial says '195' when I leave, I expect it to maybe click down to '190' when I arrive.
I have noticed lately the number is going down far quicker than that, I left for home the other day and the dial said '225' to go, but when I arrived home
it was all the way down to '190'.
Ok it was a bit of a slow, stop-start trip in rush hour traffic, but no matter how
un-economically I might drive (which I don't) there is no way that I could have used 35 miles worth of fuel on a 3 mile journey.
I have noticed similar at other times too, I'll park up at the shop, with the dial having just clicked down to say '150', then when I get home (only 200 yards away) it will have clicked down to again '145'.
Has anyone else noticed their car behaving in a similar way?


Can the cold weather have an effect on this?


Cheers.

The reason for the jump in the range is that's the cars projected range under current driving conditions. I can fill my car up and it says 320 to empty but by the time I get out of town it's down to 315 and when I get home which is 18 miles away it's telling me I have 420 left. Another example is a month ago I had done 30 miles before reaching the motorway and it was telling me I had 300 miles left yet I made it down to Manchester and back up home (420miles) on the same tank.

Don't even get me started on those bars, they're useless. I done 220miles on the way back from Wales before it even moved down one then drops like a lead balloon.


The cold weather kills fuel consumption. I regularly get 42mpg on my commute but when it was -5C every morning if I was getting 30mpg then I was doing good. Having to heat the car up in the morning, clear the windows, heating on etc all adds up.